Many existing antenna arrays utilize printed circuit board (PCB) antennas as the radiating elements. Patch antennas are often formed on PCBs using standard PCB fabrication techniques. Although PCB technology provides a potentially low-cost fabrication method, prior art arrays of patch antennas are inherently narrowband due to the narrowband nature of the radiating elements, i.e., the patches. Some researchers have attempted to increase the bandwidth of PCB array antennas by utilizing wideband printed circuit elements such as printed spiral antennas. Although these elements are inherently wideband, they require a large area (relative to a wavelength of the frequencies of interest) and the element spacing cannot be made small enough to avoid grating lobes for scans at low elevation angles. Thus, these prior art wideband elements severely limit the achievable field of view of the array.
Elongated radiating elements are known in the prior art as seen with the dielectric rod antenna disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,208,308. Although this antenna is wideband and can be closely spaced to neighboring elements, the dielectric rod is not inherently compatible with PCB technology. The most common way to excite a rod antenna is from a waveguide. Since a typical low cost array requires that electronic components be mounted on a PCB, this type of array requires a PCB to be mounted to a dielectric rod transition. A low cost method of fabrication for this complicated transition structure does not exist at this time. (Note: many practical antenna arrays require thousands of elements.)
One related prior art disclosure is the microstrip reflect array antenna described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,952. This antenna suffers the limitations described above, specifically that the bandwidth is very low, a few percent at most. The present invention provides better impedance and pattern bandwidth by using radiating elements that are not constrained to be planar. In one embodiment, the radiating elements are pyramidal in shape although other shapes could be used that may give even better performance. The extent of the radiating element, which may be more than one wavelength, creates a gradual transition from the narrow throat of the element (near the planar element feed) to free space, thus obtaining a relatively good impedance match over a wide frequency range.
Other antenna arrays attempt to increase the bandwidth by various means. One approach uses “wideband” patch elements that contain parasitic patches or stubs. Although this does increase the array bandwidth somewhat, patches remain inherently narrowband and the overall array bandwidth remains low. Another approach, found in D. G. Shively and W. L. Stutzman, “Wideband arrays with variable element sizes,” IEE Proceedings, Vol. 137, Pt. H, No. 4, August 1990, suggests the use of other wideband printed elements for use in an array, such as printed spirals. Wideband planar antennas necessarily have a width that is larger than half a wavelength, usually by many wavelengths. Incorporating any planar wideband element into an array restricts how close the elements can be placed. This restriction limits the amount of scanning that can be accomplished (i.e., the antenna field of view) since excessive scanning will result in grating lobes unless the inter-element spacing can be kept near half a free space wavelength. The present invention extends the element size in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the array to achieve wideband characteristics while keeping its extent in the plane of the array to half a wavelength or less. This way, wideband operation can be achieved over a wide field of view.
Typical phased array antennas are made of transmit/receive (T/R) modules that contain the radiating element as well as RF electronics, such as low noise amplifiers, mixers, and oscillators. This modular architecture allows each individual element to be manufactured separately; however, high gain antenna arrays that require thousands of elements are extremely expensive. A more recent approach found in R. J. Mailoux, “Antenna Array Architecture,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 80, no. 1, 1992, pp 163–172, has been the “tile” architecture where the RF circuitry for each element resides on a planar surface with the radiating element located on the backside of the planar RF substrate. The present invention preferably uses “tile” architecture, which is lower in cost than the T/R module approach, but the tiles must be electrically connected to the radiating element with low RF losses. To avoid complicated RF transitions, it is desirable to use radiating elements that are compatible with PCB technologies. This invention describes how to make very wide bandwidth radiating elements that are fully compatible with PCB technologies.